Search form

Research publications

This section contains a selective list of recent major publications (books and book chapters) in all our programs within The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. Academic journals associated with the School.

At the end of the Cold War, commentators were pondering how far Western ideas would spread in an international environment defined by 'the end of history'. Today, the debate seems to be how far Chinese ideas will reach. This innovative edited volume goes beyond the conventional focus on China's bilateral relations, in a bid to identify the extent to which China's nascent rise has provoked fresh geo-strategic and intellectual shifts within Asia. Offering a unique discussion of the evolution of Chinese schools of International Relations and the reactions of China's Asian partners to the practices of its international interactions, the contributors to this volume seek to explain and understand the relational nature of China's international outreach in the full spectrum of its unabridged complexity, contingency, and contradictions. More information...

Vervaet, Frederik J. The High Command in the Roman Republic: The Principle of the summum imperium auspiciumque from 509 to 19 BCE. Franz Steiner Verlag GmbH, 2014.

While the terminology has long been noted, the republican principle of the summum imperium auspiciumque, the high command and the prevailing auspices, has never been subject to comprehensive scrutiny. This enquiry for the first time identifies this principle as a coherent concept in Roman constitutional and administrative practice, being the senatorial oligarchy's foremost instrument to reconcile collegiate rule with the necessity of a unified high command. After defining the relevant terms and the scope of the high command both in Rome and in the field, a number of case studies yield striking new insights into the constitutional ramifications for the allocation of public triumphs, the position of the consuls in the provinces, and the official hierarchy in combined commands, highlighting the fascinating interplay between these largely customary rules of engagement and the nobility's own code of honour. This study also casts a provocative new light on how the high command was gradually monopolized by dynasts in the tumultuous period between Sulla's dictatorship and the emergence of the Augustan monarchy. Finally, a postscript addresses the vexed question of the lex curiata de imperio. More information...

The first interregional volume of the ARCANE collection gathers twenty-two contributions concerning ceramic fabrics that were produced from Egypt to Iran and from Thrace to Southern Mesopotamia across the third millennium BCE. These contributions, written by senior scholars and advanced doctoral students, are based primarily on complete vessels from secure stratigraphical contexts. They present the most recent and complete update on Near and Middle Eastern ceramic wares throughout the Early Bronze Age. More information...

Inscribed Minoan stone vessels are ritual gifts that index their dedicants' intention that both their gift and their name should survive permanently at the place of dedication. These vessels contained offerings, yet the vessels themselves were also offerings, serving as permanent records of a ritual act. These rituals were most likely communal, incorporating group feasting and drinking. The seasonality of these rituals suggests that they were focused on the cycle of life: fertility, birth, death and renewal. As for Linear A itself: the language behind the script appears to contain a fairly standard phonemic inventory, though there are hints of additional, more exotic phonemes. The morphology of the language appears to involve affixation, a typical mode of inflection in human languages. The presence of significant prefixing tends to rule out PIE as a parent language, while the word-internal vowel alternations typical of Afroasiatic verbal inflection are nowhere to be found in this script. In the end, Linear A appears most likely to represent a non-IE, non-Afroasiatic language, perhaps with agglutinative tendencies, and perhaps with VSO word order. More information...

2013

Kim, H.J. The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

The Huns have often been treated as primitive barbarians with no advanced political organisation. Their place of origin was the so-called 'backward steppe'. It has been argued that whatever political organisation they achieved they owed to the 'civilizing influence' of the Germanic peoples they encountered as they moved west. This book argues that the steppes of Inner Asia were far from 'backward' and that the image of the primitive Huns is vastly misleading. They already possessed a highly sophisticated political culture while still in Inner Asia and, far from being passive recipients of advanced culture from the West, they passed on important elements of Central Eurasian culture to early medieval Europe, which they helped create. Their expansion also marked the beginning of a millennium of virtual monopoly of world power by empires originating in the steppes of Inner Asia. The rise of the Hunnic Empire was truly a geopolitical revolution. More information...

2012

This study presents the Neo-Assyrian pottery from the excavations in Area C at Tell Ahmar. At least three buildings were identified in Area C. The distribution of the different pottery wares and types reflects patterns associated with the different activity areas identified within the buildings in Area C. Some wares and types were found with high degrees of frequency, other wares and types occurred infrequently. The buildings in Area C were only occupied for a short duration and this limited period of use is reflected in the ceramic evidence. The Area C pottery from Stratum 2 may be dated to the seventh century BCE, and most likely to the second half of the seventh century BCE. More information...

Tsetskhladze, Gocha (ed.,). The Black Sea, Paphlagonia, Pontus and Phrygia in Antiquity: Aspects of archaeology and ancient history. Oxford, United Kingdom: Archaeopress, 2012.

The book consists of 49 papers and two Appendices. The themes covered are: Greeks around the Hellespont, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Western, Northern and Eastern Black Sea, and Relations with the Mediterranean World; Romans around the Hellespont, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Western, Northern and Eastern Black Sea, and Relations with the Mediterranean World; The Black Sea and Surrounding Regions in Late Antiquity and the Early Byzantine Period; and New Excavations and Projects... The subject of the special edition and of the present volume as follow-up is the 'city', as well as - more broadly - any type of settlement, regardless of size. The time-span covered commences with the first appearance of permanent settlements in Greece, during the Neolithic Age, that is from the early seventh millennium BC, and concludes with the metropolises and metropolitan areas of the country today. The geographical area covered encompasses Greece and the wider region of the Mediterranean and the Balkans to which Hellenic civilization spread at various times in its history. More information...

Hermary, A. and Tsetskhladze, Gocha (eds.,). From The Pillars Of Hercules To The Footsteps Of The Argonauts [Colloquia Antiqua 4]. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2012.

This volume, containing 16 chapters in English and French, is dedicated to Jean-Paul Morel. It is in two parts: 'Greeks and Celts in Provence and Languedoc before Roman Rule' and 'From Etruria to the Black Sea'. The first part, on Greeks and Celts in southern France, demonstrates the vitality of archaeological research and the new discoveries and new methodological approaches it has fostered: excavations and surveys, geomorphological and paleo-environmental studies have shed new light on the evolution of indigenous cultures and relations between Celtic communities, Greeks and others, studied in their geographical and historical contexts. Massalia's domination of the coast began in the Archaic period but was firmly established only three centuries later, after the Second Punic War. Old theories of a general and regular Hellenisation of the whole region must be discarded once the complexity of relations between Celts, Greeks, Etruscans and Ibero-Punic communities is brought into focus. The second part looks at Demaratus of Corinth and the Hellenisation of Etruria, recent research at Apollonia Pontica, the urbanism of Histria, the prosopography of the Greek cities and native peoples of the northern Black Sea, and various scenes depicted on pottery, their interpretation, and the interpretation of pottery itself. More information...

The seventh international colloquium devoted to the Iron Age of Anatolia and surrounding regions was convened at Edirne, Turkey, between the 19th and 24th April 2010. This volume contains the revised versions of some of the papers delivered at Edirne. They range geographically from southeastern Europe through central and eastern Anatolia to the Trans-Caucasus and northwestern Iran. As a survey of critical issues currently shaping discourse on Iron Age Anatolia, they provide an invaluable body of new information and ideas. More information...

Byzantine chronicles have traditionally been regarded as a somewhat inferior form of Byzantine history writing, especially in comparison with 'classicizing' historians. The aim of many of these papers is both to rescue the reputation of the Byzantine chroniclers, especially Malalas and Theophanes, and also to provide some examples of how these two chroniclers in particular can be exploited usefully both to reveal aspects of the past itself, notably of the period of Justinian, and also of how the Byzantines interpreted their own past, which included on occasions rewriting that past to suit altered contemporary needs. For the period of Justinian in particular, proper attention to aspects of the humble Byzantine chronicle can also help achieve a better understanding of the period than that provided by the classicizing Procopius with his emphasis on war and conquest. By considering more general aspects of the place of history-writing in Byzantine culture, the papers also help explain why history remained such an important aspect of Byzantine culture. More information...

The papers in this volume were presented as papers or posters at the ninth meeting dedicated to the use of lasers in the conservation of artworks (LACONA), hosted by the British Museum and University College, London. They focus not only on the fundamental scientific research behind the use of laser technology, but also on the application of lasers in the treatment and analyses of cultural heritage in a way that is directly applicable to conservation practice. The papers illustrate three broad themes that have recurred throughout the well-established series of LACONA meetings, presenting advances in: the use of laser technologies in conservation treatments for cultural heritage; laser-based methods for imaging, 3D documentation and modelling; and laser-based techniques for analysis, diagnostics and monitoring. More information...

Ethel Carrick and E Phillips Fox were married for only ten years, from 1905 to 1915, but in that happy decade they established a legacy of artistic creativity and comradeship that has rarely been matched. This richly illustrated catalogue for the exhibition 'Art, Love and Life: Ethel Carrick and E Phillips Fox’ focuses on what each brought to their shared life in the studio and the cosmopolitan dialogues that took place within it. The publication is the first to focus in-depth on the relationship between Carrick and Fox, and features scholarly essays by Dr Juliet Peers, Catherine Nunn, Georgina Downey and Dr Andrew Yip, as well as works from public and private collections from across Australia. Purchase your copy at the Gallery Store or from the Gallery Store online. More information...

The Routledge Handbook of Sport, Gender and Sexuality brings together important new work from 68 leading international scholars that, collectively, demonstrates the intrinsic interconnectedness of sport, gender and sexuality. It introduces what is, in essence, a sophisticated sub-area of sport sociology, covering the field comprehensively, as well as signalling ideas for future research and analysis. Wide-ranging across different historical periods, different sports, and different local and global contexts, the book incorporates personal, ideological and political narratives; varied conceptual, methodological and theoretical approaches; and examples of complexities and nuanced ways of understanding the gendered and sexualized dynamics of sport. It examines structural and cultural forms of gender segregation, homophobia, heteronormativity and transphobia, as well as the ideological struggles and changes that have led to nuanced ways of thinking about the sport, gender and sexuality nexus. This is a landmark work of reference that will be a key resource for students and researchers working in sport studies, gender studies, sexuality studies or sociology. More information...

The publication brings together studies from different disciplinary perspectives of the production and reception of images of disaster - across epochs and continents. The chosen studies focus on disasters with a 'natural core', such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, to the exclusion of phenomena such as major epidemics on which extensive research exists. The violences unleashed by natural disasters exposes human beings to the most elemental of borderline situations. Such extreme situations bring forth culturally formed patterns of action, ways of comprehension and coping that perforce transcend responses at the individual level in order to be effective. Thus, the volume introduces important scientific investigations of the representation, mediation and interpretation of disaster. More informaton...

This book gives an analytical review of the history of witch-hunt historiography. So far not much attention has been paid to how the European witch-hunts have been studied and explained in some 150 years of academic research on the issue. The history of the approaches and explanations in witch-hunt research fundamentally contributes not only to our understanding of the bizarre phenomenon in European history but also contributes to understanding of cultural as well as academic trends which heavily direct any research even when scholars are not cognisant of their underlying premises. How and why the picture of witch-hunts has been changing in scholarly works and text books is as illuminating an issue as the proper explanations offered by the research works. More information...

Wide - ranging in theme and context, it explores the imaginative effects of his writing. A tribute to Chris on the occasion of this eightieth birthday, in many ways it suggests an alternative cultural history of Australia since the 1950s. Containing biographical and critical pieces, poems (including new work by Chris) and essays that respond to his career Travelling without Gods takes account of the decades in which he has written. It illuminates, celebrates and critiques his work in its various contexts. Travelling without Gods also offers, importantly, a sample of Chris Wallace - Crabbe's unpublished journals, as well as photography that displays both his life and his relationship with the visual arts. The contributors are all established writers and artists who have had important links with Chris. More information...

Keys, Barbara. Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s. Harvard University Press, 2014

The American commitment to international human rights emerged in the 1970s not as a logical outgrowth of American idealism but as a surprising response to national trauma, as Barbara Keys shows in this provocative history. Reclaiming American Virtue situates this novel enthusiasm as a reaction to the profound challenge of the Vietnam War and its tumultuous aftermath. Instead of looking inward for renewal, Americans on the right and the left alike looked outward for ways to restore America’s moral leadership. More information...

Vervaet, Frederik. The High Command in the Roman Republic. The Principle of the summum imperium auspiciumque from 509 to 19 BCE. Franz Steiner Verlag, 2014.

While the terminology has long been noted, the republican principle of the summum imperium auspiciumque, the high command and the prevailing auspices, has never been subject to comprehensive scrutiny. This enquiry for the first time identifies this principle as a coherent concept in Roman constitutional and administrative practice, being the senatorial oligarchy's foremost instrument to reconcile collegiate rule with the necessity of a unified high command. After defining the relevant terms and the scope of the high command both in Rome and in the field, a number of case studies yield striking new insights into the constitutional ramifications for the allocation of public triumphs, the position of the consuls in the provinces, and the official hierarchy in combined commands, highlighting the fascinating interplay between these largely customary rules of engagement and the nobility's own code of honour. More information...

2013

Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage explores how the everyday experiences of children, and their imaginative and creative worlds, are collected, interpreted and displayed in museums and on monuments, and represented through objects and cultural lore... The essays in this book span the experiences of children from classical Rome to the present moment, and examine the diverse social and historical contexts underlying the public representations of childhood in Britain, Europe, North America, Australia, North Africa and Japan. Case studies examine the heritage of schools and domestic spaces; the objects and games of play; the commemoration of child Holocaust survivors; memorials to Indigenous child-removal under colonial regimes; children as collectors of objects and as authors of juvenilia; curatorial practices at museums of childhood; and the role of children as visitors to historical sites. More information...

Macintyre, Stuart and Bashford, Alison (eds.,). The Cambridge History of Australia Vols. 1 and 2. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

The Cambridge History of Australia offers a comprehensive view of Australian history from its pre-European origins to the present day. Over two volumes, this major work of reference tells the nation's social, political and cultural story. Volume 1 examines Australia's indigenous and colonial history through to the Federation of the colonies in 1901. Volume 2 opens with the birth of the twentieth century, tracing developments in the nation through to the present day. Each volume is divided into two parts. The first part offers a chronological treatment of the period, while the second examines the period in light of key themes, such as law, religion, the economy and the environment. Both volumes feature detailed maps, chronologies and lists of further reading. This is a lively and systematic account of Australia's history, incorporating the work of more than sixty leading historians. It is the ideal work of reference for students, scholars and general readers. More information...

The Kerry Stokes Collection is one of the most significant and respected private collections of art and historical material in Australia. Celebrating Word and Image 1250-1600: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Kerry Stokes Collection features a select group of twelve handmade books or ‘manuscripts’. Each makes a distinct contribution to the history of the book itself. With a generous number of colour illustrations and written by experts in the field, Celebrating Word and Image 1250-1600 makes these important historical artefacts available to the public for the very first time. More information...

In the last decades of the twentieth century, the humanities and social sciences in Western Europe and North America experienced a 'memory boom' that gave rise to new research agendas and provoked interdisciplinary exchange. Less known are the ways in which academic practices of Memory Studies have been applied, adapted, and transformed in the countries of East-Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. Proceeding from a clear-eyed interrogation of the 'memory boom' paradigm itself - and its theoretical portability into a new cultural context - this volume collects new and varied perspectives on the challenges of post-catastrophic memory, offering a novel approach to a paradigm that has become canonical and crystallised. More information...

This book examines the online memory wars in post-Soviet states - where political conflicts take the shape of heated debates about the recent past, and especially World War II and Soviet socialism. To this day, former socialist states face the challenge of constructing national identities, producing national memories, and relating to the Soviet legacy. Their pasts are principally intertwined: changing readings of history in one country generate fierce reactions in others. In this transnational memory war, digital media form a pivotal discursive space - one that provides speakers with radically new commemorative tools. Uniting contributions by leading scholars in the field, Memory, Conflict and New Media is the first book-length publication to analyse how new media serve as a site of political and national identity building in post-socialist states. The book also examines how the construction of online identity is irreversibly affected by thinking about the past in this geopolitical domain. By highlighting post-socialist memory’s digital mediations and digital memory’s transcultural scope, the volume succeeds in a twofold aim: to deepen and refine both (post-socialist) memory theory and digital-memory studies. More information...

2012

Damousi, Joy and Plotkin, M.B. (eds.,). Psychoanalysis and Politics: Histories of Psychoanalysis Under Conditions of Restricted Political Freedom. United States: Oxford University Press, 2012.

This book is a collection of essays examining the complex, often paradoxical relationships between psychoanalysis and politically repressive European, Latin American and North American regimes from the 1930s to the present... In their introduction, editors Joy Damousi and Mariano Ben Plotkin state, "[W]hat we see in the essays included in this volume is that under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes, psychoanalysts were often persecuted for things that had little to do with their profession and ideas." This volume is a fascinating, challenging, academic account of the malleable forms under which psychoanalysis appears, is interpreted or is appropriated under authoritarian or totalitarian regimes. More information...

This path-breaking book extends our knowledge of the social and cultural impacts of television, asking new questions about the ways television’s technologies and programming have been experienced, understood and remembered. Television has served as a companion to the historical events that have unfolded in our everyday lives both on and off the screen, and its presence is intricately bound up in our memories of the past and actions in the present.As this volume demonstrates, the influence of television over individual and family behaviours, national identity and ideas of global citizenship is complex and wide-ranging. Drawing upon recent developments in memory studies, history, media and cultural studies, and with particular reference to Australia, leading scholars explore the histories of television, and how its programs and personalities have been celebrated, recalled with nostalgia or simply forgotten. More information...

Flesch, Juliet. Life's Logic: 150 Years of Physiology at the University of Melbourne. Melbourne, Australia: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2012.

The arrival in Melbourne of George Britton Halford on 23 December 1862 signalled the establishment of medical education and research in Physiology in Australia. For a century and a half the Department of Physiology at The University of Melbourne has been at the forefront of research and teaching in this essential discipline. "Melbourne University’s Department of Physiology has gained international recognition for its outstanding research and teaching. It was a pioneering institution. Now, Juliet Flesch has written, with passion and insight, the history of a great achievement and the controversial characters who ran it in Life's Logic." Barry Jones. More information...

Foley, Susan and Sowerwine, Charles. A Political Romance: Leon Gambetta, Leonie Leon and the Making of the French Republic, 1872-1882. Basingstoke, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Léon Gambetta is remembered for escaping the Prussian siege of Paris in 1870 in a hot air balloon and for his subsequent role in founding the French Third Republic. This study provides a thoroughly new perspective, focusing on the ten-year relationship between Gambetta and his lover, the courtesan Léonie Léon. This relationship was both personal and epistolary, their face-to-face meetings complemented by daily letters. As this unpublished correspondence reveals, their intimate partnership was also a political partnership, with Gambetta turning for counsel to his 'wise Minerva'. Their letters reveal the weight of contemporary gender expectations on the couple's thinking and behaviour, and the social conventions that excluded Léon from 'respectable' circles. Susan K. Foley and Charles Sowerwine use this fascinating correspondence to provide a richer portrait than Gambetta's previous biographies, introduce the unknown figure of Léon, and produce a unique glimpse into the political and cultural world of 1870s Paris. More information...

Frances, Rosemary; Grimshaw, Patricia and Standish, Ann (eds.,). Seizing the Initiative: Australian Women Leaders in Politics, Workplaces and Communities. Melbourne, Australia: eScholarship Research Centre, The University of Melbourne, 2012

Seizing the Initiative brings together a wide range of research to reveal how women in Australia in the twentieth century have negotiated leadership not only in formal politics and political lobby groups, but also at work, in business, in communities and in religious and cultural arenas. The contributors place women’s leadership within the broader setting of historical change in Australia dur-ing the twentieth century: first and second wave feminism, the world wars, growing educational opportunities and increased workplace participation. From colonial concerns to corporate life, the chapters illustrate the many advances made by women and the barriers that still stand between women and leadership roles. It is a collection that uncovers the diverse ways women have performed leadership and confirms that this knowledge is vital to developing broader understandings of leadership. More information...

The Contours of Mass Violence in Indonesia presents case studies from diverse locations throughout the Indonesian archipelago. The accounts revolve around the impact and interpretations of the September 30th Movement and its aftermath; the roles of military and civilian groups in fomenting and perpetrating violence; short- and long-tern detention; and the legacies of the assault on the political Left. Although events unfolded differently in various parts of the country, the violence amounted to a counter-revolution intended to curtail the mass mobilization and popular participation unleashed by the national revolution some twenty years earlier. The goal was to destroy the social bases of President Sukarno's left-leaning Guided Democracy, and to establish a military regime that was authoritarian and pro-Western. Students of Indonesia will learn much from the accounts in this volume, but the discussion will also benefit scholars concerned with the dynamics of mass violence, the Cold War, regime change and counter-revolution. More information...

May, Andrew. Welsh missionaries and British imperialism: The empire of clouds in north-east India Manchester. United Kingdom: Manchester University Press, 2012.

In 1841, the Welsh sent their first missionary Thomas Jones to evangelise the tribal peoples of the Khasi Hills of north-east India. This book follows Jones from rural Wales to Cherrapunji, the wettest place on earth and now one of the most Christianised parts of India. As colonised colonisers, the Welsh were to have a profound impact on the culture and beliefs of the Khasis. The book also foregrounds broader political, scientific, racial and military ideologies that mobilised the Khasi Hills into an interconnected network of imperial control. Its themes are universal: crises of authority, the loneliness of geographical isolation, sexual scandal, greed and exploitation, personal and institutional dogma, individual and group morality. Written by a direct descendant of Thomas Jones, it makes a significant contribution in orienting the scholarship of imperialism to a much-neglected corner of India, and will appeal to students of the British imperial experience more broadly. More information...

Sinclair, John. Advertising, the Media and Globalization. New York, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2012.

This book offers a critical, empirically-grounded and contemporary account of how advertisers and agencies are dealing with a volatile mediascape throughout the world, taking a region-by-region approach. It provides a clear, systematic, and synoptic analysis of the dynamic relationship between media, advertisers, and agencies in the age of globalization, and in an era of transition from 'mass' to 'social' media. Advertising attracts much public criticism for the commercialization of culture and its apparent impact on social and personal life. This book outlines and assesses the issues involved, with regard to how they are manifested in different national, regional and global contexts... While maintaining a contemporary focus, the book explains developments over recent decades as background to the globalisation of what it calls the manufacturing-marketing-media complex. More information...

How can we understand consumption in a region known for its cultural richness and vast inequalities? What do Latin Americans consume, and why? Examining topics from tango and samba to sex workers in Costa Rica, from eating tamales to selling ice in the Andes, and from building and moving houses to buying cell phones, this collection brings together original research on some of the many forms of consumption and consumers that contribute to Latin American cultures and histories. Contributors include sociologists, anthropologists, media and cultural studies scholars, geographers and historians, showcasing diverse approaches to understanding Latin American consumption practices and consumer culture. More information...

Born in Queenscliff in 1859, William Lawrence Baillieu rose from a humble background to become a successful auctioneer during Melbourne's feverish land boom of the 1880s. He quickly built a large fortune, only to lose it all in the crash of the early 1890s. Ever the astute and daring entrepreneur,he resurrected his fortunes, and those of his family, beginning with real estate,share trading and gold mining and going on to build Australia's greatest diversified business empire.Working closely with Herbert Hoover and WS Robinson, Baillieu had the vision and leadership to pioneer minerals flotation processes that revived the fortunes of Broken Hill.He founded the the Collins House group, which dominated Australian mining, metals processing and manufacturing in the first half of the 20th century and was the creative genius behind the rise of such companies as Rio Tinto, the Herald & Weekly Times, Electrolytic Zinc, Dunlop, and Carlton &United Breweries. In the first two decades of federation, 'Big Bill' Baillieu was a major figure in Victorian politics, being widely believed to be 'the puppet master who pulled the strings' behind every state ministry. He was also highly influential at the federal level, playing a central role in the establishment of the Nationalist government led by Billy Hughes in early 1917. As a builder of businesses and constructor of new industries, WL Baillieu left a profound and lasting imprint on the development of Australia. Peter Yule's biography is the first ever of this significant Australian, the founder of the Baillieu family dynasty, and arguably the most important individual in the growth of the modern Australian economy. More information...

Thomas Gordon (c.1691-1750) was a prolific Scottish journalist and pamphleteer working in eighteenth-century London. His works circulated in a variety of forms and for many years in Europe and the British North American colonies. Gordon’s conception of 'republicanism' was essentially that of a secular and tolerant society free from providential designs; his works reflected a lifelong commitment to defending the rule of law, the balance of powers, and the rotation of representative bodies. This study sets out to produce a fuller profile of Gordon, to investigate his specific and controversial contribution as a political theorist, and finally to present for the first time an annotated edition of his unfinished and unpublished (mainly medieval) History of England: a highly readable text whose main metanarrative theme is the struggle between 'the Government of Will' and 'the Government of Laws' - with the struggle between 'God’s Will' and 'the Will of the Clergy' as an essential rhetorical subtheme. More information...

Europe experienced great turmoil between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Bitter religious conflicts, war and other disasters such as plague and famine generated deep anxieties and were increasingly read as divine punishments or warnings that the Last Days were imminent. Artists gave expression to these fears in a range of extraordinary images that are analysed in depth in this publication. Illustrations of the Apocalypse, as well as images of skeletons personifying Death, and of physically deformed creatures, extreme natural phenomena and diabolical witches were all manifestations of the sense of impending social and religious crisis. Lavishly illustrated with works by artists including Albrecht Dürer, Jacques de Gheyn II and Stefano della Bella, The Four Horsemen: Apocalypse, Death and Disaster provides a fascinating insight into the art, culture and turbulent times in later medieval, Renaissance and early modern Europe. The book was awarded the Best Small Catalogue Prize for 2013 by the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand. More information...

Katyn - the Soviet massacre of over 21,000 Polish prisoners in 1940 - has come to be remembered as Stalin's emblematic mass murder, an event obscured by one of the most extensive cover-ups in history. Yet paradoxically, a majority of its victims perished far from the forest in western Russia that gives the tragedy its name. Their remains lie buried in killing fields throughout Russia, Ukraine and, most likely, Belarus. Today their ghosts haunt the cultural landscape of Eastern Europe. This book traces the legacy of Katyn through the interconnected memory cultures of seven countries: Belarus, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. It explores the meaning of Katyn as site and symbol, event and idea, fact and crypt. It shows how Katyn both incites nationalist sentiments in Eastern Europe and fosters an emerging cosmopolitan memory of Soviet terror. It also examines the strange impact of the 2010 plane crash that claimed the lives of Poland's leaders en route to Katyn. Drawing on novels and films, debates and controversies, this book makes the case for a transnational study of cultural memory and navigates a contested past in a region that will define Europe's future. More information...

2011

Broomhall, Susan and Spinks, Jennifer. Early Modern Women in the Low Countries: Feminizing sources and interpretations of the past. Burlington: Ashgate, 2011.

Combining historical, historiographical, museological, and touristic analysis, this study investigates how late medieval and early modern women of the Low Countries expressed themselves through texts, art, architecture and material objects, how they were represented by contemporaries, and how they have been interpreted in modern academic and popular contexts.Broomhall and Spinks analyse late medieval and early modern women's opportunities to narrate their experiences and ideas, as well as the processes that have shaped their representation in the heritage and cultural tourism of the Netherlands and Belgium today. The authors study female-authored objects such as familial and political letters, dolls' houses, account books; visual sources, funeral monuments, and buildings commissioned by female patrons; and further artworks as well as heritage sites, streetscapes, souvenirs and clothing with gendered historical resonances. More information...

In 2005, the Australian Federal Police referred eight Islamic books to the Australian Classification Board. The goal was to secure a ban of the books, all of which were alleged to advocate 'terrorist acts'. After nearly a year of review, and intense public debate, two of the books were refused classification and effectively banned in a move that would have severe repercussions for librarians, scholars, authors and the state of free speech in Australia. Banning Islamic Books in Australia examines the cultural and political contexts that led up to the ban, and the content of the books themselves in an attempt to determine what it was that made them seem so dangerous. It also documents the unintended consequences of the ban on library collections and academic freedom, and how this in turn affects free speech in contemporary Australia. More information...

Anderson, Fay and Trembath, Richard. Witnesses to War: The History of Australian Conflict Reporting. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2011.

Witnesses to War is a landmark history of Australian war journalism covering the regional conflicts of the nineteenth century to the major conflicts of the twentieth: World War I, World War II, Vietnam and Bosnia through to recent and ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fay Anderson and Richard Trembath look at how journalists reported the horrors and politics of war, the rise of the celebrity journalist, issues of censorship and the ethics of embedding. Interviews with over 40 leading journalists and photographers reveal the challenges of covering wars and the impact of the violence they witness, the fear and exhilaration, the regrets and successes, the private costs and personal dangers. More information...

Scalmer, Sean. Gandhi in the West: The Mahatma and the Rise of Radical Protest.Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

The non-violent protests of civil rights activists and anti-nuclear campaigners during the 1960s helped to redefine Western politics. But where did they come from? Sean Scalmer uncovers their history in an earlier generation's intense struggles to understand and emulate the activities of Mahatma Gandhi. He shows how Gandhi's non-violent protests were the subject of widespread discussion and debate in the USA and UK for several decades. Though at first misrepresented by Western newspapers, they were patiently described and clarified by a devoted group of cosmopolitan advocates. Small groups of Westerners experimented with Gandhian techniques in virtual anonymity and then, on the cusp of the 1960s, brought these methods to a wider audience. The swelling protests of later years increasingly abandoned the spirit of non-violence, and the central significance of Gandhi and his supporters has therefore been forgotten. This book recovers this tradition, charts its transformation, and ponders its abiding significance. More information...

Goodman, David. Radio's Civic Ambition: American Broadcasting and Democracy in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

The history of American radio broadcasting has often been written as a lament for lost possibilities, a tale of what might have been. One now familiar landmark in that account is the story of how American commercial broadcasters, in the passage of the 1934 Communications Act, won a great victory over reformers who wanted frequencies set aside for non-commercial use. It is generally agreed that the defeat of the radio reformers was decisive and permanent, and that the best hopes for a public radio in the United States had been thwarted by 1934. In Radio's Civic Ambition, however, author David Goodman focuses not on the lost possibilities and defeated reformers, but on what did happen as the beginning of another chapter in the story of the struggle over the meaning and purpose of American broadcasting... A new look at the history of commercial radio broadcasting in America, Radio's Civic Ambition will appeal to students and scholars in communications and radio studies, music history, media studies, and American history. More information...

Collaborative Projects - An Interdisciplinary Study presents research in disciplines ranging from Education, Psychotherapy and Social Work to Literacy and anti-poverty Project Management to Social Movement studies and Political Science. All the contributions are unified by use of the concept of 'project'. 'Project' is 'leading activity' for Child Development, whilst 'life project' may play a crucial role in personal development and Psychotherapy; the social fabric of a community can be understood as woven from projects which may be sustained by NGOs, or develop from social movements to institutions. Giving concrete content to the concept of 'project' in each domain of research, opens a prospect of a genuinely interdisciplinary human science. More information...

This book explores a wide range of issues associated with the deployment and use of broadband including its impacts on individuals, organizations, and society, and offers a generalist understanding of the technical aspects of broadband. Management of Broadband Technology and Innovation offers insights on broadband from the perspectives of Information Systems, Management, Strategy, and Communications Policy scholars, drawing on research from these disciplines to inform diverse aspects of broadband deployment, policy, and use. Issues associated with a subject technical in nature, but now researched in many ways, are emphasised. This book explains various softer aspects of broadband deployment and use, focusing on the benefits of broadband rather than on details of the technology. More information...

2013

Hjorth, Larissa and Arnold, Michael. Online@AsiaPacific: mobile, social and locative media in the Asia-Pacific. RoutledgeFalmer, 2013

Media across the Asia-Pacific region are at once social, locative and mobile. Social in that these media facilitate public and interpersonal interaction, locative in that this social communication is geographically placed, and mobile in so much as the media is ever-present. The Asia–Pacific region has been pivotal in the production, shaping and consumption of personal new media technologies and through social and mobile media we can see emerging certain types of personal politics that are inflected by the local. The six case studies that inform this book - Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Manila, Singapore and Melbourne - offer a range of economic, socio-cultural, and linguistic differences, enabling the authors to provide new insights into specific issues pertaining to mobile media in each city. These include social, mobile and locative media as a form of crisis management in post 3/11 Tokyo; generational shifts in Shanghai; political discussion and the shifting social fabric in Singapore; and the erosion of public and private, and work and leisure paradigms in Melbourne. Through its striking case studies, this book sheds new light on how the region and its contested and multiple identities are evolving, and concludes by revealing the impact of mobile media on how place is shaped, as well as shaping, practices of mobility, intimacy and a sense of belonging. More information...

The simultaneous appropriation of mobile technologies, locative media, and social networking has created a new set of relationships between place and gaming. Boundaries between hard-core and casual gaming are blurred, boundaries between private and public places are confused, and boundaries between play spaces and nonplay spaces are fused. Games demonstrate that place is a space that is not only geographic and physical but also evokes cartographies of the imaginary, emotional, mnemonic, and psychological. In each different place, the types of games played and social media deployed are reflective of the locality - that is, a sum of various factors such as linguistic, sociocultural, technological, and the economic. One region demonstrating a variety of gameplay is the Asia-Pacific region (Hjorth and Chan 2009). Locations such as Japan, South Korea, and China are indicative of this diversity. More information...

Arnold, Michael. "Facebook and the Other: Administering to and Caring for the Dead Online," in Hage, Ghassan and Eckersley, Robyn (eds.,). Responsibility. Melbourne University Press, 2012, pp. 128-141.

The concept of responsibility permeates social life. While it has many meanings, they often centre around questions of practical and moral accountability, culpability and liability. One can learn a great deal about a social formation by looking at the way the meanings of responsibility are deployed within it, the way they vary from one social space to another, and the way they are often at the centre of a political struggle over how we define and apportion blame. The essays in this book do more than examine such processes. Each in its own way also invites the reader to push existing assumptions about what individual, political, ecological and corporate responsibility entails. More information...

Arnold, Michael. "Home and Away: A Case Study of Students and Social Media in Shanghai," in Law, P. (ed.,). New Connectivities in China Virtual, Actual and Local Interactions. Springer Science+Business Media 2012, pp. 171-182.

The fast diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in China has brought forth new forms of connection among the Chinese and has changed their social lives. Virtual networks have been developed and in turn have led to the formation of networks in the actual world. This collection explores the resultant complications in the relationship between virtual, actual, and local interactions. It discusses various aspects of the implications of the new connectivities on these three types of interactions in China. The topics examined include: the possibility of the development of civil society in China, the implications for the migrant workers in the south, the challenge posed to the traditional social order, and the relationship between the new connectivities and the Chinese social context. More information...

Wills, Sara. "Negotiating migration, sentiment and insecurity: encounters with sadness and shame in Australia," in Steiner, Niklaus; Mason, Robert and Hayes, Anna (eds.,). Migration and Insecurity: Citizenship and Social Inclusion in a Transnational Era.Routledge, 2012, pp. 64-83.

This book presents an inter-disciplinary investigation into contemporary migration and social inclusion through an examination of migrant and refugee experience. In this edited volume, contributors discuss new understandings of individual and community security in a world where legal borders and definitions of citizenship no longer adequately capture the reality of migration. Distinguished contributors approach questions of social belonging and inclusion from diverse perspectives. Drawing its primary examples from Australia, Migration and Insecurity is framed by the wider experience of the Global North, with examples from Europe, the United Kingdom and United States woven throughout the collection. An inter-disciplinary approach to migration studies, this book integrates local, national and transnational spaces in its discussion of new constructs of inclusion and security. It considers questions of historical memory, ontological security, transnational communities, the role of civic institutions and social relationships in local spaces to guide the reader towards the wider conceptual questions of migration studies using expertise from the fields of sociology, gender, historical and political studies. More information...

Camilleri, Kristian. "Atom and Individual: The Trajectory of a Metaphor," in Hage, Ghassan and Kowal, Emma (eds.,). Force, Movement, Intensity: The Newtonian Imagination in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Melbourne University Press, 2011, pp. 115-127. More information...

This book considers the original and continuing legacy of Newtonian theories and imaginaries in the vast array of human attempts to understand the world. Drawing from a range of disciplines-including anthropology, sociology, the history of science, literary studies, cultural studies, social theory and economics-the essays in this volume engage with Newton as a thinker and examine his legacy. Some contributions illustrate the power of physical metaphors in understanding the social world; many others point to the limits of this endeavour. Still others show how since the eighteenth century Newtonian thought has influenced thinkers as diverse as Blake, Marx, Freud and Pierre Bourdieu. This innovative collection prompts a reconsideration of the importance of Newton for the social sciences and humanities. More information...

From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen examines how this increasingly open, collaborative, and personalizable technology is shaping not just our social interactions but new kinds of civic engagement with cities, communities, and spaces. It offers analyses and studies from around the world that explore how the power of social technologies can be harnessed for social engagement in urban areas. Chapters by leading researchers in the emerging field of urban informatics outline the theoretical context of their inquiries, describing a new view of the city as a hybrid that merges digital and physical worlds; examine technology-aided engagement involving issues of food, the environment, and sustainability; explore the creative use of location-based mobile technology in cities from Melbourne, Australia, to Dhaka, Bangladesh; study technological innovations for improving civic engagement; and discuss design research approaches for understanding the development of sentient real-time cities, including interaction portals and robots. More information...

2012

In this book, Dvir Abramovich brings together a batch of timeless classical Hebrew novels, short stories, and poems, and furnishes readers with commentaries and critical readings of each landmark work. The selection of seminal texts include masterpieces from Yehuda Amichai, Haim Gouri, Amos Oz, Dvorah Baron, Shaul Tchernichovsky, Chaim Nachman Bialik, Hanoch Bartov, Shulamit Hareven and Aharon Megged. The collection will prove exceptionally useful for any teacher or lecturer who wishes to introduce their students to the treasures of contemporary Israeli fiction and are searching for reflective analyses and searching insights. Guaranteed to ignite discussion and debate, this informative and entertaining volume, written in an accessible and lively style, will appeal to a general and academic audience and will tempt readers to read or re-read these great works. More information...

Shavitsky, Ziva. The Mystery of the Ten Lost Tribes: A Critical Survey of Historical and Archaeological Records relating to the People of Israel in Exile in Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia up to ca. 300 BCE. Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.

There have been many legends and traditions regarding the ten lost tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This book draws upon extensive discoveries and information published regarding the movement of the People of Israel and Judah from Davidic times to the dawn of the Hellenistic period. The author has tested the biblical records against archaeological evidence, testimony and inscriptions found in Syria, Assyria, Babylon and Persia. In very many cases, the inscriptions excavated in these places coincide almost word for word with the biblical record.

The early chapters also investigate evidence of migrations and movement by people to neighbouring countries by reason of seeking sanctuary, trade, marriage or in times of famine. Evidence has been found supporting the theory that many of the Northern Captives joined the tribes of the South who continued to live independently until the destruction of the First Temple. Hence it is not just a matter of investigating the transfer of captives out of Judah and the Northern Kingdom but also additional evidence found in the Bible or documents that bear evidence to Jewish people who lived, traded or served in various capacities in other lands. There is also some clear indication that many of the later captives joined their brethren who had been exiled to other lands earlier. The later chapters mention some traditions and legends that exist among many tribes that to this day trace their origins to the Exiles who belonged to the twelve tribes of Israel and Judah. More information...

2011

Abramovich, Dvir. "Relationship Building in the Middle-East Among Adversaries: Israelis and Palestinians," in Anceschi, Luca et al (eds.,). Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 117-140.

Around the world religion is an increasingly vital and pervasive force in both personal and public life. Though this trend has been widely noted, its long-term implications are as yet only dimly perceived. Will this be a force for healing or for violence? To express the question to its most dramatic, yet urgent form: can the world’s major religious traditions respond constructively to contemporary challenges in the public sphere that are now, by definition, global? Religion and Ethics in a Globalizing World seeks to address this question, and to contribute to a greater understanding of the role of religion in the paradoxical context of a world that is increasingly unified, but which remains fundamentally plural. More information...

The History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand is a comprehensive account of the historical development of philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, from the establishment of the first Philosophy Chair in Australasia in 1886 at the University of Melbourne to the current burgeoning of Australasian philosophy. The work is divided into two broad sections, the first providing an account of significant developments and events during various periods in the history of Australasian philosophy, and the second focusing on ideas and theories that have been influential in various disciplines within Australasian philosophy. The work consists of chapters contributed by various philosophers, on specific fields of inquiry or historical periods within Australasian philosophy. More information...

2013

Goswick, Dana. "Change and Identity Over Time," in Bardon, Adrian and Dyke, Heather (eds.,). A Companion to the Philosophy of Time. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 365-385.

A Companion to the Philosophy of Time presents the broadest treatment of this subject yet; 32 specially commissioned articles - written by an international line-up of experts – provide an unparalleled reference work for students and specialists alike in this exciting field. It is the most comprehensive reference work on the philosophy of time currently available; the first collection to tackle the historical development of the philosophy of time in addition to covering contemporary work; provides a tripartite approach in its organization, covering history of the philosophy of time, time as a feature of the physical world, and time as a feature of experience; and includes contributions from both distinguished, well-established scholars and rising stars in the field. More information...

Sankey, Howard. "Thinking About Religion: Examining Progress in Religious Cognition," in Dawes, Greg and Maclaurin, James (eds.,). A New Science of Religion. Routledge, 2013, pp. 111-132.

Religious belief, once in the domain of the humanities, has found a new home in the sciences. Promising new developments in the study of religion by cognitive scientists and evolutionary theorists put forward empirical hypotheses regarding the origin, spread, and character of religious beliefs. Different theories deal with different aspects of human religiosity – some focus on religious beliefs, while others focus on religious actions, and still others on the origin of religious ideas. While these theories might share a similar focus, there is plenty of disagreement in the explanations they offer.

This volume examines the diversity of new scientific theories of religion, by outlining the logical and causal relationships between these enterprises. Are they truly in competition, as their proponents sometimes suggest, or are they complementary and mutually illuminating accounts of religious belief and practice? Cognitive science has gained much from an interdisciplinary focus on mental function, and this volume explores the benefits that can be gained from a similar approach to the scientific study of religion. More information...

A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy is the most comprehensive single volume on the subject available; it offers the very latest scholarship to create a wide-ranging survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy. The book ncompasses the broadest treatment of Buddhist philosophy available, covering social and political thought, meditation, ecology and contemporary issues and applications and each section contains overviews and cutting-edge scholarship that expands readers understanding of the breadth and diversity of Buddhist thought. More information...

"Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives" writes Sissela Bok. Although trust is ubiquitous, understanding trust is a non-trivial challenge. Trust: Analytic and Applied Perspectives addresses critical and analytical issues of trust. It examines trust from a conceptual perspective as well as considers it in practical contexts ranging from the public sphere broadly understood to particular social institutions, such as universities and medical care. Trust: Analytic and Applied Perspectives explores what kind of good trust is, what kind of goods it can protect and how it can bring about goods, and develops subtle distinctions between trust and other virtues, and between trust and other forms of dependence. More information...

The book includes almost every major author currently working in the field. The papers are on the cutting edge of the literature some of which discuss current debates and others present important new ideas. The editors have avoided papers about technical details of paraconsistent logic, but instead concentrated upon works that discuss more "big picture" ideas. Different treatments of paradoxes takes centre stage in many of the papers, but also there are several papers on how to interpret paraconistent logic and some on how it can be applied to philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and metaphysics. More information...

Biomedical research is increasingly carried out in low- and middle-income countries. International consensus has largely been achieved around the importance of valid consent and protecting research participants from harm. But what are the responsibilities of researchers and funders to share the benefits of their research with research participants and their communities? After setting out the legal, ethical and conceptual frameworks for benefit sharing, this collection analyses seven historical cases to identify the ethical and policy challenges that arise in relation to benefit sharing. A series of recommendations address possible ways forward to achieve justice for research participants in low- and middle-income countries. More information...

2012

While the phrase "metaphysics of science" has been used from time to time, it has only recently begun to denote a specific research area where metaphysics meets philosophy of science - and the sciences themselves. The essays in this volume demonstrate that metaphysics of science is an innovative field of research in its own right. More information...

Philosophical logic has been, and continuous to be, a driving force behind much progress and development in philosophy more broadly. This collection by up-and-coming philosophical logicians deals with a broad range of topic, including, for example, proof-theory, probability, context-sensitivity, dialetheism and dynamics semantics. It contains outstanding volume of papers from some of the most exciting young scholars of philosophical logic and offers a broad perspective on one of the most important disciplines within philosophy. More information...

Traditional art is based on conventions of resemblance between the work and that which it is a representation "of". Abstract art, in contrast, either adopts alternative modes of visual representation or reconfigures mimetic convention. This book explores the relation of abstract art to nature (taking nature in the broadest sense—the world of recognisable objects, creatures, organisms, processes, and states of affairs).

Abstract art takes many different forms, but there are shared key structural features centered on two basic relations to nature. The first abstracts from nature, to give selected aspects of it a new and extremely unfamiliar appearance. The second affirms a natural creativity that issues in new, autonomous forms that are not constrained by mimetic conventions. (Such creativity is often attributed to the power of the unconscious.) More information...

2011

Cordner, Christopher (ed.,). Philosophy, Ethics and a Common Humanity: Essays in Honour of Raimond Gaita. London: Taylor and Francis, 2011.

The work of Raimond Gaita, in books such as Good and Evil: An Absolute Conception, A Common Humanity and The Philosopher's Dog, has made an outstanding and controversial contribution to philosophy and to the wider culture. In this superb collection an international team of contributors explore issues across the wide range of Gaita's thought, including the nature of good and evil, philosophy and biography, the unthinkable, Plato and ancient philosophy, Wittgenstein, the religious dimensions of Gaita's work, aspects of the Holocaust, and aboriginal reconciliation in Australia. More information...

A Companion to Relativism presents original contributions from leading scholars that address the latest thinking on the role of relativism in the philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics. The book features original contributions from many of the leading figures working on various aspects of relativism; it presents a substantial, broad range of current thinking about relativism; and it addresses relativism from many of the major subfields of philosophy, including philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, logic, and metaphysics. More information...

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies

757 Swanston Street, Building 199 The University of Melbourne Parkville 3010 VIC Australia